Dioxins (PCB's) in belgian products

[Focant Jean-Francois <JF.Focant@student.ulg.ac.be>]

Hey,

I saw the reply from J. Campbell with the copy of Chem. and Engin. News of June 14th. This is a good paper on the belgian problem but I would like to add some more informations to it.

As Jackie H. C. say in the paper, belgian officials decided to run PCB tests rather than dioxin tests because of the much less cost.

We have to keep few things in mind. This way of action is only acceptable when contamination spring is well identified as a "hot production" of dioxins from PCB. All analysis regarding samples contaminated via others springs has to be tested using classical (more expensive) dioxin EPA1613 method. The global strategy adopted for the "crisis situation" follow the fact that if no PCB's are present in samples then we postulate that no dioxins are presents...

These PCB analysis will not rigourously replace dioxin tests. PCB are screened using GC/ECD (not HRGC/HRMS) which is less congener specific. A table of values has been built by authorities to classify samples in negatives (reinjected on the market), positives (destroyed) and suspect samples. Suspect samples have 1) to be PCB reanalysed using GC/MS to be sure of the result presented by GC/ECD, 2) to be analysed for dioxins (dioxins, furans and cPCB's) contents via HRGC/HRMS to quantify all the congeners and to provide a classical response in TEQ.

This strategy will reduce the global cost of analysis but is only applicable in this particular situation. Using PCB analysis for dioxin estimation in all cases of contaminations is a dream and will stay one.

Focant Jean-François
University of Liege
Mass Spectrometry Laboratory
Allee de la Chimie, 17 (B6c)
B-4000 Sart-Tilman (Liege 1)
BELGIUM
Tel : ++32 (0) 4 3663531
Fax : ++32 (0) 4 3663413
@mail : JF.Focant@student.ulg.ac.be